Tuesday, November 6 2018, is Election Day in the United States.  Please vote!

Doing my civic duty.  Yes, it’s a bit like homework.  I’m happy to do it, but do we really need so many judges?

In the last national election (in 2016), ~60% of eligible voters cast ballots.  If you’re young, it gets worse–less than half of those aged 18 to 29 voted last time! Amazingly, it gets even worse!  Tuesday’s election is a “Mid-Term” election, meaning the President is not up for election.  Historically, only about 40% of voters show up for mid-term elections.  The good news?  That makes your vote 50% more valuable!

You may not care about politics.  You know what, politics doesn’t care about you either, unless you vote.  Whether you care or not, there are numerous critical political issues that will effect your life, now and in the future.  Quite literally, the future of climbing is at stake.  Right now, our government is deciding if it can sell our public lands to the highest bidder (note: climbers are not the highest bidder).  Right now, our government is deciding if it can ignore Climate Change.

Our nation’s founders created a government with three independent branches (the executive, legislative, and judicial branches) in order to provide a system of checks and balances–to ensure no one group could amass too much political power.  Right now, one political ideology controls all three branches of our government.  Our only opportunity to restore some balance ends at 7pm on Tuesday.

Regardless of your politics, voting sends a strong message to your elected officials that you are paying attention and you do care about the future.   Please join me in showing our leaders that we care by casting a ballot on (or before) Tuesday.

See here for details on how to vote in your state.